Separation Science and Technology, Vol.40, No.9, 1871-1883, 2005
Development and performance of a new annular centrifugal contactor for semi-industrial scale
Centrifugal contactors have several advantages such as low hold-up volume, short residence time, low solvent degradation, small space requirements, and short start-up time. Therefore, centrifugal contactors are favored for the reprocessing of spent fuel. Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, China (INET) has been developing annular centrifugal contactors; since the late 1970s. Recently, a new annular centrifugal contactor for semi-industrial scale, which the inside diameter of its rotor is 70 mm, has been developed to be used in nuclear industry. A modular design and an overflow structure design are adopted in the contactor. The hydraulic performance and the mass-transfer efficiency have been studied in a single-stage contactor and in a three-stage cascade. The maximum total flow of the single stage contactor can reach 290L/h at suitable operation conditions for H2O-kerosene system. The extraction stage efficiency of the single-stage contactor is greater than 95% at suitable operating conditions for extracting Nd3+ with 30% TRPO-kerosene solution from Nd(NO3)3-1 mol/L HNO3 solution and from the simulated high-level liquid waste (HLLW). The hydraulic performance and the mass-transfer efficiency of the three-stage cascade are also excellent. Even though one stage or two nonadjacent stages ceased to work, the cascade can continue to run.
Keywords:annular centrifugal contactor;semi-industrial scale;hydraulic performance;mass-transfer efficiency